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Liczbinski Murder Jury Hears Death Penalty Arguments

The prosecutor in the Stephen Liczbinski murder case has made an impassioned argument that convicted cop killers Eric Floyd and Levon Warner should be put to death -- telling the jury that,  based on the evidence, the law requires it and justice demands it.

KYW's Tony Hanson reports that defense attorneys were then getting their chance to argue that their clients' lives should be spared.

Prosecutor Jude Conroy told the jury that Floyd and Warner, with criminal records dating back decades into their teens, have no empathy for victims.

And Conroy said they had a chance for life on May 3rd, 2008, when triggerman Howard Cain slaughtered Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski with an assault rifle. Conroy says they could have surrendered rather than deciding with Cain to "bang him."

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Attorneys for Floyd and Warner have emphasized that neither was the shooter and that both had horrible childhoods.

Defense attorney Earl Kauffman, acknowledging that Floyd punched out his other defense attorney during jury selection, quoted an old saying about "an accident on the way to happen."  He told the jury that Floyd was a criminal on the way to happen.

According to Kauffman, Floyd had no guidelines to be a child, only guidelines to be a criminal. And noting that Floyd never shot or killed anybody during his long criminal career, Kauffman said that Floyd never crossed that line.  And he has asked the jury not to cross that line.

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